


They Call Me Pandemonium

by Unreal_Kitty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hedonism, Hurt No Comfort, Identity, Identity Issues, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, POV Loki (Marvel), Ragnarok, Suffering, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-07-29 08:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16260137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unreal_Kitty/pseuds/Unreal_Kitty
Summary: Loki falls in a shatter of rainbow and lands in a pile of garbage.He spends a few weeks on Sakaar. In that time, Loki loses his older brother and his true name. He makes a grand effort to lose his mind as well, but even the God of Mischief can't win every time.





	1. Fox

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure if this counts as as genuine whump or not. It seems to me that the past 7 years or so of Loki's life has been a canonical whump-fest. Regardless, proceed with some degree of caution- Loki's about to have a rough few weeks. 
> 
> But then again, sometimes you need a kick in the pants to be ready to change — and if anyone knows something about transformation, it's the Shapeshifter God. 
> 
> Other notes:  
> Although published last, this is actually the first installment in a three-part series. The third chapter of Pandemonium (which will be released shortly) flows directly into the sequel, Valhalla, I Am Coming. However, all three were initially intended as stand-alone pieces and can be read as such. All were written before Infinity War came out.

**Chapter 1: Fox**

Loki fell in a shatter of rainbow. 

Again. 

He couldn't help but remember his previous plummet from the Bifrost. Iridescent shards winked goodbye then, as well. The vacuum of space clawed at his clothes. Last time, he was betrayed by his own hand, his own despair. Now, by his own throwing knife. 

The last time he fell, he watched his brother's face grow smaller and smaller. Now, he saw only this new sister, this interloper in the remnants of his family. This pretender Queen. Then his vision disappeared in a rainbow shatter and he saw nothing at all. 

Loki landed in a pile of garbage. 

He opened his eyes to a ripe banana peel. A carnival mask, broken down the middle. A singed pack of playing cards. A stuffed fox, down one glass eye. He reached out a hand, brushing his fingers across red fur. This must be Hel, customized for the God of Mischief. 

Loki closed his eyes again. A hot, dry breeze licked at the cuts on his skin, cuts left by a thousand shards of broken Bifrost. But wait, a hot breeze? In Hel? That couldn't be right. Hel was a frozen wasteland, everyone knew that. Fire gives life, and takes it. Ice alone stops time and preserves the dead. 

He couldn't be in Hel. 

Loki heaved a beleaguered sigh and pried his eyes open again. If he wasn't in Hel, then he wasn't dead. And if he wasn't dead, then the game wasn't over. He rose to his feet and pocketed the slightly burnt deck of cards. He started to walk away from the pile of trash, then hesitated and sunk to one knee. 

"I'm sorry, friend," he said to the fox as he buried it as best he could in the rocky ground. "I've got to find my brother."

He scanned his surroundings. 

Piles of trash stretched as far as he could see. Occasionally, a circular rift would open in the sky and drop more flotsam to the ground. There was no sign of any other life. No towns in the distance, no rising smoke, no air ships, horses, or flying beasts of any other kind. Just the sky, the sun, and the trash. 

Loki shifted to his fox form. He'd hopefully attract less attention this way, in case he really had landed in enemy territory. And besides, he could cover more ground on four legs than on two. 

He trotted about, sniffing for Thor's distinct scent. His brother always smelled of sweat and ozone. He circled the area in wider and wider arcs. As the day stretched on, he switched to a lope, than a gallop. No hint that his brother landed anywhere nearby. 

The day pressed on for much too long. Bright light besieged his pale eyes. He was getting tired. The scratches had healed, but even a God can't run forever in borrowed skin. But he wasn't dead yet, so the game wasn't over. He couldn't see far enough from the ground, that was the problem. If he could just search from above, he'd be sure to find his brother. 

He mustered his remaining energy to a single, shining focal point. When that wasn't enough, he burned some of his own mass, transforming matter to energy. Anyone could do it, but only a master shapeshifter could speed up the process to such a degree. He tossed fat and muscle into the ravenous furnace that was his magic.

Obligingly, blue-grey feathers climbed up his arm. A merlin. He needed a falcon's eyes today, not a magpie's. Where was Thor? Where was he? He circled and circled, dodging the falling debris. 

Loki finally landed, and stumbled back onto two legs and no wings and a working voice.

"THOR! BROTHER!! Where are you?" He abandoned his earlier caution. Let the horde come, he'd slay them all with his tongue. He needed to find his brother. 

"THOR! ANSWER ME!" He ran, wildly. Splintered furniture and broken swords tore at his clothes. "THOOOOOR!"

His voice didn't echo. The plain was too broad, too open, and the piles of the lost and abandoned absorbed the sound. Loki listened for a reply. When none came, he howled, not his brother's name, but a raw explosion of desperate fury. He kicked at the nearest object. The delicate bones in his foot met steel, and metal crumpled beneath the god's strike. He wailed again, for frustration, for the pain in his foot. 

The wail dissolved into a choked sob. He sank to the ground, grasping his sore foot. He sat at the base of the half-buried statue he had kicked, some deified spider creature. Its eight-legged shadow stretched over him.

Loki used to wish over and over that Thor would just go away. Vanish and take his great big terrible shadow with him. These past three years were good, weren't they? Things were as they should. The great oaf out gallivanting on some heroic quest, the warrior prince he was so well suited for. While Loki governed, a cautious mind on the throne rather than the mad king his father was turning into. 

He remembered the throne room. His father's eyes were insanity. Frigga was gone. The son he didn't want still alive, standing before him. Loki struck, before Odin could say how he wished it was Loki who had fallen. Loki didn't think he could withstand those words. 

But then, in the field, in Norway. He was so confused. 

"I love you, my sons," said the hot wind passing through the spider-god. 

"Shut up," mutter Loki.

What was worse, he wondered. The real hate or the imagined? Would he rather have been right to condemn his father, or wrong? 

A blessed sound offered Loki an escape. A ship, some kind of skimmer, wheezed by. Loki slipped deeper into shadow. Hunger must rule these barren lands. And anyone willing to fly so boldly must be a hunter. He studied the vehicle more carefully from between the statue's fangs, noting the patchwork hull and groaning engine. No, not a hunter, not a particularly good one, anyway. A scavenger. 

He spied markings in blood on the grimy window. A thousand years of dodging bullies and toppling tyrants without a scratch warned him away. 

A scavenger wouldn't help him find his brother. And they wouldn't be here if they had caught him. Thor could tear them apart, hammer or no. And Loki needed to find his brother. 

He waited until the wheezing passed, then trotted from beneath the spider, a fox once more. 

\--------------------------

The sun had finally retreated and then returned three times. In that time, Loki had dodged the attention of many more skimmers, ships, and lone hunters, all the while searching for his brother.

He tried to leave signs. He traced entwined serpents in sand, scratched it on stone, even painted it in blood on bits of fabric. He drew an enormous sigil on the ground with his footprints, in case Thor spied it from the sky. He perched as a magpie on the wing of a broken ship nearby for a full day, watching for his brother. 

Come on, Thor, he urged. See me.

A noise, a thrumming in the air. Loki's eyes widened. It worked, it had finally worked. He stretched his stiff wings, preparing to swoop down to meet his brother. 

A skimmer flew by, smearing the entwined serpents beyond recognition with a careless gust. 

Something in Loki shattered. His patience? Hope? Loki shattered like the Bifrost. 

He stumbled forward on Asgardian legs. Thor wasn't coming. Thor was dead. Hela, that bitch, had killed him. Probably destroyed Asgard too. The self-proclaimed Goddess of Death could do nothing else. His brother was dead. Like his father. 

Loki had thought himself alone for so long. He was such a fool. That was not "alone," that was simple loneliness. This...this horror, was alone.

Loki did not howl. He did not roar. His pain and terror had been vibrating, like atoms, and now they had reached the tipping point and ascended to a higher state. A telekinetic wave exploded outward, pulverizing the surrounding rubbish. Gone was the fallen ship, gone was the empty coffin, gone was the half-eaten birthday cake impaled on a spire. The offending skimmer, now far past the ruined sigil, crashed violently to the ground. 

A wail pierced the air, a siren. A pack of skimmers descended upon the trickster god. Loki watched them with feline disinterest, but slid a hand into his bottomless pocket all the same. The skimmers landed around him, and opened. Masked beings poured out, weapons raised. They circled him, chittering amongst themselves with hungry eyes. 

One scrapper clothed in particularly elaborate robes approached him. He wore a hood of some alien wild dog. Russet fur stripped with violet. The ears were tall and upright, making him loom tall, taller even, than lanky Loki. 

"Fighter or food," said the Jackal to the Fox. 

Loki coiled his love and loss into a spring of infinite potential and stored it away. Fighter or food. A binary choice. But Loki was the Trickster God of Third Options. He raised the pack of cards and deftly shuffled them. 

"Friend," lied the Fox to the Jackal, pressing a card into the scavenger's hand without looking at it. "The best you'll ever have."

The Jackal looked at the card. The Joker. 

\--------

Before they quite understood what had happened, the pack found themselves leading Loki down a resplendent hallway. He prowled ahead of them, chin in the air. He would not be surrounded like a prisoner under armed escort. If he acted like prey, he'd be eaten in a heartbeat. 

They'd chuttered on about the Grandmaster, whoever that was. Some gamester, Loki presumed, the boss who ran this ruin of a realm. Loki caught the mention of "The Games." Good. He liked games. Games had clearly defined rules, open and exposed and easy to break. 

In truth, he didn't have much of a long-term plan. He'd learn the game and break the rules because that's what came naturally. He'd wind himself up like an automaton until he could work out what to do next. Or maybe, with nothing left for him, he'd just keep running until the clockwork wound down. 

The coil in his chest thrummed. 

They led him to a throne. His lips quirked. Who was this gamester who style himself a king? Loki had stood at the feet of gods of War and Winter. These scavengers were presenting him to a child playing dress-up. 

Then they drew closer, and his smirk faltered. This was no child. The creature before him radiated a slow, ancient lifeforce. This was no mortal man, but another god. Or perhaps something older still. Who was he, Loki wondered? He understood now why the scavengers called him only by the title of Grandmaster. All names had power. And if a mortal name was a candle, a god's was a sun. Loki doubted the Grandmaster would have shared his true name with these lost, hungry souls. 

His grin returned. Another game for Loki to play, a game within a game, just as he liked them. So when the Grandmaster asked his name, he knew exactly how to answer. 

"They call me Pandemonium."

It wasn't exactly a lie. It really was his name, one of them, anyway. But it hadn't been used in a very long time, and he knew too many stories were told of the trickster god Loki. Mystery makes for better mischief making, after all. 

And when Loki thought further, Pandemonium was an apt name for the god who would soon wreak havoc upon this barren land.


	2. Pandemonium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki fell from the rainbow bridge into colorless junkyard fields. 
> 
> Then he fell again — or rather, clawed his way — into the Grandmaster's rainbow clutches.

Loki fell from the rainbow bridge into colorless junkyard fields. 

Then he fell again — or rather, clawed his way — into the Grandmaster's rainbow clutches. 

Amazing how such a brightly colored place could be so terribly dark.

The kind of dark where a trickster god could forget his divinity, and a mourning son and brother could almost forget his sorrow. But only almost. 

Loki drifted about in a haze. He flirted numbly and charmed on reflex. His tongue remained as silver as always, despite being drowned in liquor and sweat and false kisses. 

The coil grew tighter. 

The world spun into chaos. Loki should have adored it. In a different lifetime, he would have. And even now, he devoured the swirl of garish primary colors and bathed in gloriously empty bodies. 

He was a prince here, in a way he never had been back home. He wore a crown of gambling chips and a cloak of debauchery. No one jibed at him, no one demanded a warrior. He reigned with strained laughter, and they laughed with him. 

The people here worshiped at his feet, they built an altar of hazy hedonism. He offered them the silver that flowed from his tongue, and they paid him in kind, with sacrifices of sex and wine. He was a different sort of god here, in a way he had never been before. 

An ever-present wine glass replaced the dagger in Loki's hand. He thought it was wine, anyway, but he couldn't be sure. Sometimes it bit, sometimes it burned, sometimes it wasn't even liquid at all, but air or soil or congealed blood. And sometimes the glass turned to a snake in his hand, or a playing card, and his subjects worshiped him more than ever. 

Loki could hardly believe his own popularity. Look at the banners! The pennants and flags waved in the streets. All green, every last one of them! Green for Loki!

Meanwhile, he played the game for all he was worth. Loki won every game of skill, chance, and heart. He cheated, of course, and they all knew it. But wasn't that all part of the fun? What else could one want from the Lord Pandemonium?

Time started to warp like a pool-water reflection disturbed by a tossed stone. Loki couldn't always tell when he was asleep. How could he, when reality bore the iridescent colors of a dream? 

Then the voices came, striking like thunder behind his eyes. 

_Loki. Odinson. Son of Laufey. Prince of Asgard. Prince of Winter. Prince of Nothing At All._

The voice was sound. The voice was color. It vibrated through his bones. 

_My Son, My Son, I Love You My Son. Brother. Loki. Thor's Brother. Loki, Loki Loki._

Loki’s stomach sloshed violently. He pulled himself to his feet, extracting himself from the pile of bodies tugging at his limbs. The floor tilted. Suddenly, it wasn’t a marble floor at all, but a wooden ship’s deck. 

Ridiculous, Loki thought as he steadied his weight against a table. He hadn't gotten seasick in centuries. He was the Prince of the Dragonboat People, wasn't he? Was he? 

Fingers clawed at his back and shoulders and hair, pulling him towards them. Everyone wanted him. Isn't that what he always dreamed of?

But they were pulling in too many directions, he couldn't be everywhere at once. Yes he could, he was a master of magic! He reached to the place his magic lived, the furnace in his center. It slithered through his fingers. He grabbed for it again and bared down hard. His fingers crushed muscle and coal. His magic writhed, so he squeezed even harder. 

_Loki Loki Loki. _The voice matched the frantic beating of his heart.__

____

There! A release! Something relaxed, submitted. A wave of euphoria overtook him. 

____

No, not euphoria. Loki stumbled out of the room, colors spewing from his mouth. His body rejected the supplicants, priestesses, the shining dyes and gambling chips. A kaleidoscope of primary colors escaped onto the marble floor. It looked like a radiant oil-slick. 

____

Loki dragged himself to a corner and curled up. He felt sick. He felt clean. Then he felt nothing at all. 

____

\------

____

The next day his pride returned and flooded his body like a balm. He must not forget the game. The Grandmaster may have named himself as such, but Loki, Loki was the true master here. Or at least, he would be. 

____

He cringed at the events of the previous day. 

____

Get ahold of yourself, he thought. You are of royal blood twice over. You are a god. Pick yourself up and keep moving. 

____

He shoved aside the thought that he wasn't moving forward so much as running away. 

____

He combed his long fingers through his long hair, working out the knots. He could succeed here, in this madness. The people were practically begging for his rule. The realm was so bright, and no shadows obscured him in his spotlight. He mustn't waste this opportunity for glorious purpose. 

____

He splashed some water on his bare chest — someone must have stripped off his leathers. It might even have been himself, he couldn't quite remember. He had awoken to a thankfully empty room, with the harsh Sakaarian sun streaming through. 

____

Someone knocked on the door, and a woman breezed in with a plate loaded with delicacies. Loki's stomach rolled, and he waved the platter away. Her eyes flicked up his torso and chest before meeting his. Loki's cheeks blazed in spite of himself. He wasn't sure why he suddenly felt embarrassed, this wasn't anything new. 

____

Then she grinned in uncanny echo of Loki's vulpine ways, bare and raw and honest in its intent. Realization struck in horrific parody of a sunrise. He'd seen that exact expression on the women of the court, directed at his brother. Not him, Thor. 

____

"Would you excuse me?" he asked in a polite tone that felt foreign on his lips.

____

The lady nodded and hurried away, perhaps unnerved by the foreignness of the tone. Loki didn't know her name. 

____

He turned toward the mirror and peered at himself intently. Dark hair, green eyes, pale skin. He was not his brother. And yet, she grinned at him anyway. 

____

He pulled a pen from the drawer beneath the mirror and snapped it in half. Turquoise ink spilled onto his hands. He drew vertical lines down his chest and torso, mimicking the motif that adorned the halls of the realm. Thor was gone, and Loki would take this realm for his own. 

____

When the ink dried, Loki pulled on the tight, brightly colored leathers. He straightened his clothes and inspected them for semi-digested flecks of primary color.

____

Not a speck.

____


	3. Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again and again, Loki fell. Through rainbow shards, through ancient abyss, through grotesque clutches in technicolor. Perhaps the Lord Pandemonium is forever doomed to fall. But Loki Odinson always climbs to his feet.

Loki fell through a rainbow prism of passing days. 

The wine kept flowing, the laughter kept erupting, and the voices kept calling his name. 

He strutted down bustling streets that coated his skin and hair and eyes in green.

It was nothing, nothing at all, to toss a marble into the crowded room and watch the resulting crash of bodies as the room erupted into chaos.

Faces shuffled from neck to neck like masks. He couldn't keep track of the crowds. Faces youthful and fair, elderly and weathered, scaled and furred. He thought he saw a fox, once, but it vanished into the green like a doused spark. 

The Grandmaster's face peered from every room and crooked alley. His face loomed from stone towers and deep shadows. Sometimes, he was a giant, hovering above the ground. Sometimes, a mouse, appearing and vanishing at whim. 

A plan started to coalesce in Loki's sludgy mind. Snakes and foxes alike eat mice... if the predator were cunning and nimble. He just needed to wait and watch. And he could be patient, this Lord Pandemonium. He had nothing else to do.

So he dutifully prowled at the Grandmaster's heel. He sniped at Topaz, the second-in-command, and sowed discord between the pair. He played cards with the Grandmaster and always lost by a hair. He told jokes and sang ditties and spun stories like a spider-god, all for the Grandmaster's pleasure. He helped settle disputes and offered subtle advice and found a dozen other ways to make the gamster-king's life as easy as possible. 

Loki could play the ultimate courtier when the mood struck him. He had been raised a king's youngest son, after all. 

_Loki, Prince of Asgard_ , said the voice. _Loki Thor's Brother. Loki Odinsson._

This isn’t right, Loki thought. None of this is right. I was meant to serve in Thor’s court, not here. 

But there is no “Thor’s court,” and there never will be, he argued to himself, morosely. 

The coil in his chest railed furiously. He swallowed with effort, and chased the choked misery down with a sip of some strange green wine. He shouldn't feel guilty. He was only doing exactly what Odin had intended. He stood at the right hand of a king. It wasn't his fault that Thor was gone and his right hand went with him. 

_Loki!_ cried the voice. He frowned. It rang louder than usual. 

He sank into a plush seat and started mindlessly talking to a flock of toadies. But he couldn't wrench his thoughts from his brother. He found himself telling a (highly embellished) version of the time he fought Thor on the Bifrost. 

"Loki!,"shouted a dream. He tried to ignore it. The voice was growing too loud. It was growing too real. He could hear it with his ears and not with his mind. The voice rang clear now, a single, pure thing, rather than shattered rainbow voices. He was going mad. He was already mad. Where do you go after insanity? How much further could he possibly fall? Just how high up was this rainbow bridge? 

He wrenched his focus back on faux nobles who circled around him, starving for a good story. "At that moment, I let go." 

"Loki? Loki! Over here! " insisted the too-clear voice. It was too sharp. He couldn't help but look towards the source of the sound, which strangely seemed to originate in front of Loki, rather than from inside. 

Thor sat before him, bound to a chair. Loki blinked hard. It changed nothing. It changed everything. 

The coil bucked mightily in his chest and nearly escaped his control, but Loki steadied it at the last second. With tremendous effort, he wrenched it still. They mustn't get trapped here. Things must change. And for change to happen, Pandemonium must survive. 

Loki wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. First thing's first. Thor invoked his name. Loki, a summoning. But they mustn't release the god yet. He rushed to shush his brother.

"What? You’re alive?" he said, to stall for time and allow his wits to catch up. 

"Yes, of course I’m alive."

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m stuck in this stupid chair. Where’s your chair? 

Despite everything, Loki had to stifle a grin. "I didn’t get a chair," he deadpanned. 

"Get me out of this one."

"I can’t." He didn't need to lie. He had power and influence, yes, but it only went so far. For now. 

"What?"

"I’ve made friends with this man. He’s called the Grandmaster. I’ve gained his favor. The Bifrost brought me out here weeks ago."

"Weeks ago? I just got here."

Of course! Time played by its own rules here, in the barren lands. He should have known, he should have been cleverer. Loki's mind flooded with calculations. 

The Jack and Joker. Two cards in his hand now. Perhaps enough to take down a king?

The sudden appearance of the Grandmaster cut his musings short. 

"What are you whispering about?" The hair on the back of Loki's neck prickled. He mustn't forget the power beneath the eccentric facade. He needed to take care, if he and his brother were going to survive. 

"On any other world, I’d be like, millions of years old. But here on Sakaar..." Loki cringed. He couldn't quite meet Thor's eye. He felt the weight of his brother's gaze spreading over him, like clothes and full armor drenched in seawater. 

Fortunately, the Grandmaster continued, distracting the thunder god.

"In any case, you know this... You call yourself Lord of Thunder?"

"God of Thunder. Tell him."

Loki groaned inwardly. The greater a threat Thor appeared, the more deadly the opponent he'd have to face. His damn pride would be the death of him. 

"I’ve never met this man in my life."

"He’s my brother."

"Adopted." It shot of out Loki's mouth automatically. 

“Is he any kind of a fighter?" 

Here was his chance to quell at least some of the damage his brother's massive ego had wrought. Loki gave a dismissive shrug as a lukewarm testament to Thor's fighting prowess.

Thor shot him a glance. Loki could sense his disbelief and frustration...and disappointment. It resonated painfully with the coil in his chest. He swallowed hard and watched as his brother's chair was pushed away. 

It'll be alright, thought Loki. They'll probably just throw him in the ring as a warm-up. He'll fight a Centaurian, or perhaps one of those Kronans. Yes, nothing more dangerous than a Kronan. He'd reduce it to pebbles. 

\-------  
  
Loki found Thor in one of the gladiator's circular holding cells. He couldn't help but reflect on the box in which his father had expected him to live out the rest of his long life. 

_I love you, my sons._ How could that be true? To push the thought away, he knocked back the rest of his goblet of thick magenta that tasted of winterberries. Pandemonium had no use for truth. It cared only for what was real, for fire and sweat and the crackle of an electric heart. 

He heard Thor before he saw him. It seemed he, too, thought of their father. 

"Odin, I bid you take your place in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever."

Loki frowned. He should be included in this wake. Even if...no. He should be included.

"Nor shall we mourn but rejoice—"

"—for those that have died the glorious death," Loki completed. His brother turned and glared. 

Showtime, thought Loki. He had this one shot to convince his brother to join him. The Brothers Odinson once more. So he went straight for what they had in common: a disappointing father. 

"It hurts, doesn’t it? Being lied to. Being told you’re one thing and then learning it’s all a fiction."

Thor lobbed a rock at him, revealing the illusion. Loki switched tactics. Help me tear down a tyrant, he argued. We are already lost, he pleaded, when his appeal fell on deaf ears. Thor tossed another stone.

Loki couldn't stand the silent indifference. "Say something!" he cried.

_"Tell me!"_ whispered an echo. 

Thor looked him in the eye, and Loki quailed beneath the mask of the Lord Pandemonium. 

"What would you like me to say? You faked your own death, you stole the  
throne, stripped Odin of his power, stranded him on Earth, to die, releasing the Goddess of Death." Each statement struck like hailstones. "Have I said enough, or do you do  
you want me to go further back than the past two days?"

Loki drew a breath. His eyes burned. The coil, too, had grown hot from the unreleased emotion it held. You're a magician, Loki, he thought. Work your alchemical ways, transform this golden king to yet another grasping scoundrel. 

But his brother's eyes were the blue of Jotun ice, and just as frigid. The magic wouldn't take. Of course it wouldn't. That's what made Thor Thor, after all. 

"You know, I haven’t seen this Beloved Champion he talks of, but I’ve heard he’s astonishingly savage." Loki spat fire to counter the cold. "I’ve placed a large wager against you." 

He vanished before Thor could see his wet eyes.  
\----------  
The match between Thor and the Champion flew by in a sickening whirl. Green skin, white lightning, and too much, far too much red. 

The lightning, admittedly, surprised him. Loki hadn't realized his brother could call the storm without the aid of his hammer. He couldn't help but quirk his lips. 

Still, Thor fell, at the Grandmaster's distant hand. The crowd saw the Monster, but Loki knew better. He, of all people, knew cheating when he saw it.

Loki's evening hadn't started in horror. He had looked forward to watch Thor get knocked around a bit, wipe that self-righteous look off his face. He hadn't actually thought Thor would face the Champion in his first match out. So when the Grandmaster summoned him to the arena, Loki had breezed in with the satisfied air of a tomcat. 

He took bets, tickled the ears of courtiers with his silver-tongue, and tasted a sweet green wine while anticipating the sweeter taste of his brother's humiliation. After Thor realized he couldn't punch his way out of trouble this time, he'd come round to Loki's way of thinking. 

But of course, Loki's threat in the cells, tossed about wildly like a drunken fist, proved prophetic. The Hulk. The Grandmaster's favorite Champion was the Hulk. 

When the great green Monster tore his door off its hinges and stomped into the arena, Loki felt as though he had swallowed the Casket of Ancient Winters. Thor would lose the match, and Loki would lose his brother all over again. 

_I saw you die,_ whispered the voice. _I mourned for you, I cried for you._

The part of Loki's brain that remained in its first, suicidal fall from the rainbow bridge, laughed. Twice he had put Thor through this same torment, and now it was time to be repaid in kind. 

Think, think, he urged himself, chewing on his fist. What could he do? Could he exert his power and hard-won influence to spare Thor? Put his silver-tongue to better use than whispering in courtiers ears and tasting exotic drink?.

No. 

Even after weeks of careful work, he could do nothing. The Grandmaster would immediately be suspicious if he showed such interest in this match. He couldn't goad, cajole, or trick the monster lord out of the contest. He could do nothing but watch from the sidelines. 

After he watched security drag his brother's body from the arena, Loki managed to make his excuses and escape the Grandmaster's private box. 

This time, when he vomited onto the floor, he painted the marble green.  
\-------------

For a god of chaos, Loki clung hard to control. He reveled in the spirals of entropy, but only so long as he stood untouched in its center. 

Thor's escape, with the great green idiot in tow, tossed Loki directly into the storm. 

He had to beat the Valkyrie to his brother. If she dragged him back to the Grandmaster's clutches....

And yet, he found himself tied to a chair. 

And his game pieces weren't acting in their expected roles. His captor decided to aid Thor. Banner had conquered the Hulk. And Thor...well, he was the same as ever. Brave. Single-minded. Utterly predictable. A tiny bit of control in chaos. 

Or so Loki thought. 

The elevator threw him for a loop. 

"I’m probably better off staying here on Sakaar," said Loki in the minute he and Thor had to catch their breath before the final part of their escape plan. 

"That’s exactly what I was thinking."

Loki nearly missed this response, preparing for the inevitable argument where Thor tried to convince him he was worthy of his brother's compassion. 

"...Did you just agree with me?" he sputtered, stunned. 

"This place is perfect for you. It’s savage, chaotic, lawless. Brother,  
you’re going to do great here."

Loki felt a wave of nausea. Please, don't let me be sick here, not now, he silently pleaded to himself. He couldn't believe Thor agreed with him. Thor wasn't supposed to agree with him. Thor wasn't supposed to leave him here. The coil, charged with horror, wrapped itself around Loki's lungs and squeezed. 

"Do you truly think so little of me?" he managed after he found his breath. 

A pause. Like a stopped heart. The response couldn't possibly be as awful as Loki's imagination. And yet, Thor managed it. 

"I thought the world of you. I thought we were gonna fight side by side forever. But, at the end of the day, you’re you, I’m me....I don’t know, maybe there’s still good in you, but let’s be honest, our paths diverged a long time ago."

Thor had given up on him. After everything. He was done. 

Loki remembered dangling from the Bifrost, his brother's strong hand the only thing between life and oblivion. Although Loki now stood in a rising elevator, he was falling. His brother had let go. 

He threw out a desperate hand, a last chance for Thor to save him. 

"It’s probably for the best that we never see one another again.”

Disagree!, he begged. 

"That’s what you always wanted," came Thor's lethal reply. 

\-------

It was not the obedience disk that felled Loki, but the snapping of the coil. 

He had crept towards the security system panel, using the same doppleganger- trick that had duped his brother so many times before. He couldn't let Thor escape. 

Well, that wasn't quite true. He couldn't let Thor face Hela and lose. 

But once again, Thor found a way to ruin his plans. Not a heartbeat after Loki triggered the alarm, Thor affixed the electric disk to his shoulder. Loki collapsed in his own personal storm, fingers of lightning flickering across his body. 

It was a trick worthy of the Trickster God. 

The trickster in question could barely hear his brother's words over the rattle of his own writhing bones. But the killing words found their way inside his head, anyway.

"See, Loki, life is about, it’s about growth. It’s about change."

Loki flicked his eyes away from Thor, the only parts of his body he could manage to move. He thought he spied the shadow of a fox on the wall.

"But you seem to just wanna stay the same." The coil in his chest grew white hot with the energy it contained. He felt it burn in his ribcage, far hotter than the electricity of the disk. 

"I guess what I’m trying to say is,you’ll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more."

That did it. 

With a mighty snap, every emotion Loki had compressed, shoved aside, and ignored exploded outward. Colors whirled violently before his eyes. Green and red and gold berserkers howled in his ears. 

A part of Loki reared up to fight the incoming onslaught of pain. But Pandemonium was only practiced in the art of fleeing problems, not facing them. It was simply no match for the likes of of sorrow and guilt and despair. Nor did it find an ally in the fox god who joined the rushing throng with bared teeth and bristled fur.

As Thor started up the stolen ship, its engines rang a death knell for the Lord Pandemonium.


End file.
